This invention relates to an electronic musical instrument and, more particularly, to an electronic musical instrument capable of automatically controlling starting and stopping of a plurality of automatic performance devices.
Automatic performance devices known in the art of electronic musical instruments include an automatic rhythm performance device, an automatic bass chord performance device, an automatic arpeggio performance device, etc. Starting and stopping of these various automatic performance devices provided in an electronic musical instrument should preferably be conducted in synchronization with one another and not randomly and independently. Electronic musical instruments comprising these automatic performance devices normally comprise a plurality of performance selection (control) switches each of which corresponds to one of these performance devices and operation of a desired one of the automatic performance devices is started or stopped by operation of a selection switch corresponding to the desired performance. It is difficult, however, to operate the plurality of performance selection switches simultaneously; e.g., in a case where a performer desires to stop plural automatic performance devices in operation simultaneously. There is also a case where the automatic bass chord performance is conducted by depressing a key in the keyboard for designating a chord while the automatic rhythm performance is concurrently conducted. In such a case, if the performer merely releases the depressed key, the automatic bass chord performance thereby is stopped but the automatic rhythm performance is continued. Even if the performer switches off the automatic rhythm performance selection switch, the automatic rhythm performance may remain conducted for a short duration of time after stopping of the automatic bass chord due to time lag between the release of the depressed key and the switching off of the selection switch. This will give an awkward impression to the audience and therefore is not desirable.